Paulo Henriques Britto (born 1951) is a Brazilian poet, translator and professor.

Life Paulo Henriques Britto was born in Rio de Janeiro, in a middle-class family. His father was a military officer. When he was 10 years old, his father was detached to the US, and his family moved to Washington, D.C, for two and a half years.

Later, Britto returned to the US to study film in Los Angeles and San Francisco, but never finished the studies. It was then he began writing poetry.

Britto graduated in Portuguese and English Literature at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in 1978 and got a master's degree in Languages in 1982 at the same university.

He debuted as a poet in 1982, with Liturgia da matéria, followed by Mínima Lírica (1989), Trovar Claro (1997), which was awarded the Prêmio Alphonsus de Guimarães by Biblioteca Nacional Foundation, and Macau (2003), which was awarded the Prêmio Portugal Telecom de literatura brasileira. In 2004 he wrote the short story book Paraísos Artificiais and in 2007 he wrote Tarde, followed by Formas do nada, in 2012.

He translated over one hundred books to Portuguese, by authors such as William Faulkner, Elizabeth Bishop, Byron, John Updike, Thomas Pynchon and Charles Dickens.

Britto is also an associate professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in translation, creative writing, and Brazilian literature courses.

On 22 May 2025, Brito was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Works

Poetry

1982 – Liturgia da matéria 1989 – Mínima lírica 1997 – Trovar claro 2003 – Macau 2007 – Tarde 2009 – Eu quero é botar meu bloco na rua 2012 – Formas do nada 2018 – Nenhum Mistério 2022 - Fim de Verão

Works translated into English

2007 – The Clean Shirt of It (translated by Idra Novey, BOA Editions, )

Short stories

2004 – Paraísos artificiais 2021 – O castiçal florentino

Non-fiction

2012 – A tradução literária

References

External links

BELÚZIO, Rafael Fava. BRITTO, Paulo Henriques. "Formas do nada", 2012. Em Tese, [S.l.], v. 20, n. 2, p. 256–260, ago. 2014. ISSN 1982-0739. In: http://www.periodicos.letras.ufmg.br/index.php/emtese/article/view/5668. Access em: 3 November 2017. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.17851/1982-0739.20.2.256-260. Britto's Profile at PUC-Rio